And It's Done

Just about...

If you look closely you can see that I *should* do some finish work on the base piece just below the padded rail. If I were going to sell this to someone I would tighten a couple of things up. As it is, I will be playing on this for a while and I have plenty of time to get around to the last 2% of the job.

Poker Table Almost Complete

The first game is soon and the table is ready. The only thing I haven't done is cut holes for the cupholders. I have 10 stainless steel cupholders but I think the table will work best with 8 players. I am going to host a few games before I make a final decision.

I am quite pleased with the final result. The racetrack has a nice gloss to it (even though there are some imperfections) and the padded rail looks very uniform with no visible wrinkles. I have to thank Jo for the help with that one. The rail alone took over 600 staples...all done with a hand stapler.

I have some more progress pics that I'll put up later but here's a sample of the (almost) finished product.

Poker Table: Day 4

The final cut to be made today is the most important one of the whole table. This is the only exposed wood edge so it has to be clean. Last night I cut the round sections of the racetrack and I finished the straight sections this morning. This was a little more stresful than the previous cuts because I hadn't used the router against a straight edge before. The previous cuts were made with an edge guide but a minor jug saw debacle left me with an edge that I didn't trust, so I couldn't use the edge guide as I intended. Here are some pics on this morning's progress.

Here's what it looked like this morning before making the straight cuts. I had to lay down some poker chips to check it out. It's really starting to take shape.


I didn't get any shots of the actual cutting but when it was done I set everything up to get a feel for how it would look.

Very exciting

and here's what the stain is going to look like on a test piece.
Not too bad for a morning's work. Hopefully I can prep the racetrack and lay down the stain tonight. I am expecting a lot of the materials to be at my door when I get home.

Poker Table: Day 3 (Rail Complete, Racetrack Started)

I made some pretty good progress today. There will be a padded rail around the playing surface that is made up of two oval pieces. I got the main piece cut this morning and cut the second piece (the rail lip) after work. There was a slight problem with the jig saw but after a little bit of time with the router I had a decent workaround. Once I got that figured out I glued and screwed the two rail piece together and let them dry.

While those piece were drying I started the cuts for the racetrack. I really took my time with this since it will be the one exposed piece of wood and I really don't want to have to buy another sheet of plywood.

I didn't get any pictures of the rail pieces right after they were cut but you can see how they fit over the main playing surface. After three days, it's starting to take shape.

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Legs Legs Legs!!!

The legs showed up today. These were just a little more expensive than those really cheap looking folding legs from Home Depot and they look so much better. The rest of the supplies should show up tomorrow and Tuesday. I hope to have the table done and ready to play on by the middle of next week. Finishing the race track (stain and poly) will take a couple of days though.

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As promised here are a few pictures of the router jig with the router attached.

Poker Table: Day 2

I woke up this morning and decided to try a little bit of sanding with my palm sander. The jigsaw cuts were decent but not perfect. After some deliberation I decided to try and build a jig for my router to make the circle cuts nice and smooth. I haven't really used my router much and I was a little hesitant about trying to make a jig for it. Also didn't want to buy one because I am trying to keep the costs low for this project. With a little help from some router jig references I decided to give it a shot. I had some spare 3/4" ply that I ripped from the full size sheets that was the perfect width. I removed the base plate from my router and used that as a template for the mounting holes. I cut a 2" hole for the router bit to pass through and measured out the radii that I would need for the table . It looks like everything lines up very well with the curves that I already cut with the jig saw so I think I'll be able to use the router for everything else. I don't think it will makes things any faster but it should be a lot more precise...I like precise!

After work I actually had a chance to use the router jig. It was pretty successful. I did have one bit of oversight and measured on the wrong side of the router bit which made my rail cut 1/4" off. I am not going to worry about it...I think it will be fine.

So total progress for today includes building a router jig, cutting all of the pieces to ovals and starting on the 4" (actually 3 3/4") rail piece.

Here are a few shots of the oval pieces...with some closeups before sanding.

Here are a few shots of the router circle jig. Pretty simple. I'll get some pics of it installed later.

New Project: Poker Table: Day One

I am always working on one thing or another and just recently I got really excited about building a poker table. Before I let the excitement die down I started doing some serious research, buying some materials and started cutting. There are a few things that I am glad that I haven't jumped into in the past (see my "overzealous" thread) but I am pretty stoked about this one.

Day 0 (actually a few days) consisted of researching wood, tools, buying materials, etc.

Today is really Day 1. I got three sheets of Birch plywood this morning, borrowed a jig saw and started cutting this evening.

The sheets started out as 4' by 8'. I think this is a little too big for my tastes so I cut the plywood down to 3.5' by 7'. It should still be plenty to sit 8-10 people.

Once I got the ply down to the smaller size it was a little lighter and I could maneuver it a little better. I busted out the jig saw and after a few test cuts I started shaping the first piece. After some careful measuring and cutting I have a rough shape of the outer diameter of the table.


The next step is to sand the oval so the edges are smooth, then cut the other two pieces the same shape and select the best piece for my exposed wood section.

I would love to have this table done by next week but it will be tough since I am headed up to DC for HFAY racing and I am headed out to do some trailwork on Sunday in preparation for The Paranormal.

Hopefully I can get the sanding done tomorrow and start cutting the other two ovals. Here's what the workbench looked like after two hours of working. It was clean when I started.

Building Time: 2:00 hours
Total H20 consumed: Exactly 1.5 liters